Do we only see what we want to see? Or do we only see what we are shown? Many admit to knowing there is both good and evil on this earth, but it appears we feel that evil exists only in individuals or small pockets of like-minded people, never can we conceive, it seems, that evil may be pervasive, systematic and organized. I know, in this day and age, the debate about evil is long, does it exist and what constitutes evil versus lifestyle choice. I've always figured in the end it is only my own actions I will have to be responsible for, so I try not to judge others, but I have to state that I find the ritual torture, molestation and often, murder of children to rest fully in the realm of evil.

According to the reports from the US Department of Justice 797,500 children (18 and younger) were reported missing in a one year period studied, resulting in an average of 2,185 being reported missing each day. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children This is an shockingly high number, considering those numbers only represent the United States and only the children that are reported missing, not the throwaway kids that exist in every town and city across America. So where are all these children going?

It seems in the 1980s we received a few clues from the mainstream media about what may be happening, but the stories were called hoaxes and disappeared from view, dismissed and supposedly debunked. Where this sordid tale begins and ends is still a mystery for me, but I will start with the disappearance of Johnny Gosch on Sept. 5, 1982, the country´s first milk carton kid. Johnny was a good-looking 12 year-old boy when he disappeared from his route delivering the Des Moines Register Sunday paper. At the time of his disappearance police did not immediately begin searching for him and waited a 72-hour window before considering him officially missing.

Ms. Gosch maintains that Johnny was taken as part of a huge and well-organized human trafficking ring used for the purpose of satisfying pedophiles for profit. In recent years she has received photographs in the mail, made at the time of Johnny´s disappearance, of he and other boys tied and gagged. She has had contact with Johnny only once since he was kidnapped, when, as an adult, he turned up on her doorstep late one night and explained that he was involved in something too deep and dangerous to ever escape. She is the author of the book, "Why Johnny Can´t Come Home". Johnny Gosch Foundation

In 1984, a woman accused employees of the McMartin Preschool of molesting her young son when he came home bleeding from his rectum, a doctor verified that the child had been sodomized and thus became the longest criminal trial in American history. The story made headlines for years, as hundreds of preschool attendees came forward with stories of satanic ritual sexual abuse, animal mutilations and tunnels under the school which whisked the kids off to unknown locations to participate in sex with adults. Shock and outrage swept the country, but the defendants maintained their innocence throughout the long years of investigation, hearings and trials. Eventually, charges against all defendants were dropped, except for the son of the owner, Ray Buckley and after two juries deadlocked, he was released.

We, across America, relaxed knowing that justice was served and that no satanic, occult or sexual rituals had occurred and many believed that the McMartin family deserved an apology, despite the claims of hundreds of children who had stepped forward. The newspapers declared it was a witch hunt brought on by mass hysteria, many books and documentaries were made siding with the McMartin family and headlines like "Indict the Children, Jail the Parents" appeared across the country, including The Wall Street Journal. Although a task force was created, little media attention was given to the fact that the McMartin Preschool was not the only school in the area under investigation. 7th Fire

During the investigation, 460 children reported being sexually abused and 80% showed physical symptoms including vaginal and rectal scarring, anal bleeding and sexually transmitted chlamydia infections. The children´s stories were remarkably similar concerning the nature, location and perpetrators of the abuse. Although the media held our attention, the public was never informed that teenagers and twenty-year-olds, former students of McMartin´s Preschool, had also come forward confirming the claims of the children, but were not allowed to testify due to the statute of limitations. The judge in the case ruled that the children (aged 2 to 11) could not testify on closed circuit television, but had to face the attorneys and face them they did, each child was grilled by all the defense attorneys, one after another. And as the parents of the children next in line watched, they decided pull their kids from the proceedings.

Nor was it brought to the public´s attention that a couple key witnesses died suspicious deaths before they could testify. Judy Johnson, the first parent to raise concerns of molestation was declared a paranoid schizophrenic by the media, although she had no such medical diagnosis and was later found naked and sprawled out in her kitchen floor, dead of alcohol poisoning. And Paul Bynum, a prosecution witness and private detective hired by the defense was found dead of a single gunshot wound the morning he was scheduled to testify. His death was ruled a suicide, although friends and family declared it was not something he would do. McMartin Preschool Revisited

"Neither side is going to like what I have to say," Bynum told a reporter before he died. Bynum wanted to know how his citation books, the official police records kept from his time as a detective, had turned up in Ray Buckley´s desk when he was arrested for molestation. And he could corroborate a key point in the children´s testimonies. The children had stated their attackers killed turtles and other small animals to scare them into silence and Bynum, while retained by the defense, found numerous turtle shells and other small animal bones buried in the yard of the preschool.

According to the editor of the Los Angeles Times, Noel Greenwood, the widespread media coverage was "a mean-spirited campaign" organized to discredit the kids and their therapists. Besides the ridicule the media heaped on Judy Johnson before her death, they also belittled the children´s claims, deeming the idea of a tunnel under the preschool, impossible. But when the parents hired an independent excavation team and that team found the back-filled tunnel system, the media issued one short paragraph mentioning "evidence" of a tunnel and promptly quit covering the story. The discovery of the often-ridiculed tunnel was also not admitted into evidence at trial due to a myriad of reasons.

Due to the fact that the preschool had recently changed hands and was set for demolition, the excavation team was given little time to complete the dig, but discovered that tunnels ran under several of the classrooms and uncovered the larger "secret room" that the children had described. An additional tunnel was also discovered leading out from under the preschool, to the triplex apartment next door and coming up into a bathroom under a moveable tub. Archaeological Investigations of the McMartin Preschool

In a interview on L.A.´s Pacifica Radio, Jackie MacGauley, mother of a McMartin student, said, "It was interesting because a lot of the child development specialists, psychiatrists and therapists across the country thought that it was some psychological phenomenon that the kids would talk about tunnels. Somehow that idea got 'planted,' and they had all these theories as to why all the kids would talk about something like this. It obviously couldn't be true. And the district attorney at the time just flatly did not believe it, and really didn't want to look." History now states that the McMartin Preschool ritual abuse case was nothing more than a hoax perpetrated by deceitful therapists, lying children and mass hysteria. And interestingly enough, of the hundreds of children who came forward and were interviewed, only one has recanted his story.

In 1988, Franklin Credit Union in Omaha, Nebraska was raided and upon examining the books it was found that close to 40 million dollars was missing. The credit union was run by Larry King (not the talk show host), who at the time was a fast moving Republican star and sang at the Republican conventions in 1984 and 1988. Not only did investigators discover falsified books, they also found a large cache of child pornography. Due to newsprint publicity (television news didn´t touch this event), eighty children came forward with stories of ritual sexual abuse by high-powered community and political leaders. The Boys Town School featured prominently in the claims and was said to be a hunting ground for rich and powerful pedophiles. As the strands of this scandal reached all the way to Washington DC, John DeCamp, former US Republican senator, was sent to disprove the case, the results of his investigation and an attempt to save his life, after many threats, is the book, "The Franklin Cover-Up: Child Abuse, Satanism and Murder in Nebraska". Alex Jones interview with John DeCamp

As the witnesses came forward stories of children being transported across the country to exclusive parties where they were molested, auctioned off and even murdered came to light. At these events where orgies, satanic rituals and endless drugs were available many photographs and videos were made, later to be used for blackmail, to ensure silence or for profit. John DeCamp had his doubts when he began investigating the allegations, the claims seemed too wild to be true, but then he met one of the victims, Paul Bonacci, who had kept a very detailed journal from the time he was 12-years old.

Bonacci´s diary contained information about locations, events and named high powered leaders, not just politicians but heads of banking, publishing and from the entertainment field. As Bonacci described a particular Washington party, DeCamp was amazed; he had attended the same party as a senator and remembered that children had been present at the event. Of course, DeCamp didn´t witness any of the ritual abuses described, because those, Bonacci explained, happened after the party, when the crowd had slimmed down considerably.

In 1989, the front page of The Washington Times screamed a shocking headline, "Homosexual Prostitution Inquiry Ensnares VIPs with Reagan, Bush" the subtitle states, " ´Call boys´ took midnight tour of the White House". The Times confirmed that Washington lobbyist Craig J. Spence had arranged for four midnight tours of the White House for young boys. The Law Party Paul Bonacci stated he had been on two of those tours and was able to describe rooms in the White House that are not typically seen by the public. Bonacci clarified that he did not have sex in the White House, but afterwards he was taken to party and forced to have sex with adults. Craig J. Spence was later found dead, the death was ruled a suicide.

Gary Caradori, an investigator for the Nebraska State legislature, met with Russell Nelson, a former photographer for Larry King, in Chicago. Nelson handed over video and photographic evidence to support the claims of ritual abuse, but on the return trip home Caradori´s plane disintegrated in air killing both he and his 8 year-old son. A local deputy, the first on the scene, claimed that the crash site was littered with photos of child pornography, but soon federal agents appeared and retrieved all the evidence, warning the deputy to keep his mouth shut. The deputy had trouble keeping quiet about the strange events until he had a head on collision several months later, he survived, although severely injured, his wife did not. The Gunderson Report

Four victims eventually agreed to testify, Paul Bonacci, Alisha Owens, Troy Boner and Danny King. Danny King, often described as "pathetic" he was so broken by the abuse, recanted his story and Troy Boner also recanted after his brother was found dead, it was ruled suicide after it was decided the boy had lost a game of Russian roulette. Boner insisted his brother was afraid of guns and never would have touched one, he also confided to friends that he had to "lie or die". After recanting before the grand jury he disappeared, it is rumored that he later turned up in a mental institution in 2003, was sedated and found dead the next morning.

Alisha Owens did not recant, despite the fact that her brother was also found dead by yet another suicide. Due to Owens testimony that she had sex with the chief of police at 14-years old, as well as other allegations, she was convicted of perjury and sentenced to 9-27 years. The grand jury threw out all allegations of child abuse and declared the charges "a carefully crafted hoax...scripted by a person or persons with considerable knowledge of the people and institutions of Omaha". No conspirator was ever named and no further investigations were undertaken. Wikipedia

During Owens´ imprisonment, which began in 1991, she was kept in solitary confinement longer that any other woman in the history of the State of Nebraska. Owens was released on parole in 1997, but then the show "Inside Edition" aired an episode discussing the idea that Johnny Gosch may still be alive and she was picked up a week later, she was informed she had to complete her sentence in jail. During pre-trial interviews, Owens stated that she had seen Gosch, as well as several boys from Boys Town, at the exclusive parties where she and others had been abused. Owens was released in 2000 and said she only wants to lead a "normal" life.

Larry King was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to a 15-year prison sentence. In 1999, Bonacci sued King in civil suit in which he alleged child abuse, mind control, satanic ritual abuse and sexual abuse. Bonacci was awarded a $1 million dollar default judgment because King did not appear to defend the allegations. All told, 14 people connected with the Franklin cover up have died, including DeCamp´s friend and mentor, William Colby, former CIA director, who was discovered floating in a pond in 1996.

In 1993 the Discovery Channel contracted a British documentary team to investigate the story, Yorkshire Television spent 10 months in Nebraska interviewing witnesses and reviewing taped testimonies. The documentary, Conspiracy of Silence, was slated for air in 1994 and was listed in the TV Guide, but it was never shown. It is said that influential and connected people put pressure on the cable industry, fully reimbursing the production company and the Discovery Channel and that all copies were destroyed. Luckily, an unfinished version later turned up on John DeCamp´s doorstep. Conspiracy of Silence

And in a stranger twist of an already strange story, a young reporter appeared in White House briefings in 2003 going by the name Jeff Gannon, he caught the attention of the other reporters for the "soft" questions he asked the president or his press secretary. Controversy was stirred when it was discovered that the name Jeff Gannon was a secret service approved alias for James Guckert, who had been granted remarkable access to the White House. Gannon/Guckert claimed to be a reporter for Talon News, but at the time he made his first appearance in the briefings, he had never published a single article. The Raw Story

It quickly came to light that Gannon/Guckert advertised himself on pornographic gay websites as an escort charging $200 an hour. Washington Post And then rumor and speculations began flying on the Internet that Gannon/Guckert was really kidnap victim Johnny Gosch. Whether or not Gannon is actually Gosch, no one seems to know, but I understand that Gannon has refused DNA testing.

Both Gannon and his business partner, Bobby Eberle, owned the now defunct and admittedly partisan Talon News. And in another coincidence, a couple named Eberle were some of the most outspoken defenders of the McMartin family during the preschool scandal. They have published two books, "The Politics of Child Abuse", about false allegations of child abuse in day care facilities, in 1986 and "The Abuse of Innocence", supporting the McMartin family, in 1996. Since the publication of the books the Eberles are considered experts in the field of childhood sexual abuse. Interestingly enough, the Eberles have also published many hard and soft-core pornographic magazines. Excerpt from 1988 Ms. Magazine In a book review of "The Abuse of Innocence", a writer for the Tampa Tribune stated, "For a period of time during the 70s, Paul and Shirley Eberle were the most prolific publishers of child pornography in the United States." Wikipedia Whether or not these Eberles are related, I have no idea, but if not, it sure is a curious coincidence.

There you have it, the tip of a very complex and dangerous mystery. So do we choose not to see evil in our society or does the media simply do a fine job in hiding the ugliness from us? Dozens of some of the most powerful people in America were accused and identified in these cases and never charged with a single crime. Hundreds of children told the same or very similar stories, displayed physical and emotional symptoms and evidence was presented confirming their claims, yet somehow, the courts and the public decided they were all lying. We want to believe that the pedophile is the lone stranger that we can warn our children about, we want to believe the abductions and molestations of our youth are just disturbing, isolated events, but the truth is, it is a huge and lucrative business.

If we choose to believe what is written in this article and within the many links provided, many will assume that the scandals from Nebraska and California could never happen in their town, in their neighborhood or with their children, but how do we really know? The pedophile, child pornography and human trafficking networks are organized by well connected people, working in unison with other seemingly upstanding community leaders and backed by more money and resources than most of us, struggling to pay our bills month to month, can imagine.

Are we forgetting that just recently Mark Foley, who was once considered a crusader for abused and exploited kids, was caught propositioning and writing sexually tinged emails to teenage pages? Are we forgetting the Catholic Church scandals? The truth that no one wants to accept and the media makes easy to ignore, is that this is happening all across our country, remember those 2,185 children that disappear everyday? And in the McMartin and Franklin cases, the children were mostly just used, threatened, fondled, raped, filmed, brain washed and returned to their homes and most parents had no clue. I think it is time we begin looking at the real evils in this world and learn to recognize it for what is it, because if we cannot or refuse to see evil, then how can we protect our children and ourselves?

_________________Everything I write here is my opinion, not absolute truths but I don't want to start every sentence with in my opinion...

It took me three days to read through the archived (and the current) talk pages and digest them properly. It is a raw discussion between believers and skeptics that gives the picture of what it is all about. (Oh, by the way, I started a new article in Wikipedia, "Ritualized child abuse", but it has nothing to do with the purported "Satanic" cases such as the McMartin preschool trial.)

Cesar, I see there that you still quote from ipt-forensics.com at Wikipedia, after it's unmistakably clear what their agenda is about. To fresh up your memory:

Dennis wrote:

That someone related is a Board member of FMSF. The site ipt-forensics.com where you get your information from is basically put together by Hollida Wakefield, the only active staff member it seems. In an earlier stage she had the help of her husband Ralph Underwager.

Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose. They can say that what they want is to find the best way to love. . . . Paedophiles can make the assertion that the pursuit of intimacy and love is what they choose. With boldness they can say, "I believe this is in fact part of God's will. --Dr. Ralph Underwager in this interview with Paidika, a European pro-pedophile publication

Doesn't it bother you that you quote articles from people who have a record of pedophilia and legal accusations of child abuse against them? Doesn't it bother you that many Board members of the FMSF have been working for the CIA in gruesome experiments on animals and children? (Exposed by their own governmental documents released by the FOIA)

You also ignore real evidence from satanic ritual abuse that's been confessed to the FBI, which I posted here. This is not about belief but acknowledgment that such abuse is real and that it exists.

Dennis

_________________Everything I write here is my opinion, not absolute truths but I don't want to start every sentence with in my opinion...

Everything you have said here has been addressed many times in those Wikipedia talk pages and in the parallel discussions in many other Wikipedia articles (such as the McMartin case article, the book Michelle Remembers article, and many, many others related to the "Satanic ritual abuse" article). As I said, I spent three days re-reading the exchanges. The controversy about the ipt-forensics journal and the FBI report has been extensively discussed there, among practically all the subjects discussed in this thread since the last year.

Last week I had to read hundreds of pages of discussion (now printed by me and kept in a ring binder for close study) before engaging in a reasonable discussion in the wiki. Instead of discussing these subjects all the way around here, I invite the interested readership of this forum to take a good look at the ongoing discussion there.

It's there where I like discuss this subject because Wikipedia receives millions of hits.

Show me one single discussion on the whole of Wikipedia that has lead to a unanimous agreement on a controversial topic without people turning into character assassins. You haven't even looked at the article I linked about the evidence of Satanic Ritual Abuse. Isn't this typical for the so-called skeptic, to ignore all evidence that will lead to the opposite of this believe, especially when you have calling the opponents as 'crack-pots' for such a long time.

And I couldn't find a single word about ipt-forensics.com in the aforementioned Wikipedia article. (Note added: found a bit hidden in one of the archives, written by you, but you didn't debate the excellent arguments mentioned after that.)

Cesar wrote:

It's there where I like discuss this subject because Wikipedia receives millions of hits.

You know it's against Wikipedia rules to stand on a soap box or have discussions that are irrelevant to the improvement of the article. Wikipedia therefore states that further discussions should be held somewhere else.

Dennis

_________________Everything I write here is my opinion, not absolute truths but I don't want to start every sentence with in my opinion...

There must be a misunderstanding here. I have read thoroughly the believers' texts. That's precisely why I printed, studied, marked, and re-read, their arguments in the hundreds of pages taken from several wiki articles related to "Satanic" ritual abuses. However, I don't have time to engage in two fronts: an open forum like this one, and Wikipedia.

The ad hominem, Chewbacca defense accusations to freelance journalist John Earl about the claims of underground tunnels have been answered several times by wiki users Arthur Norton, Eleland and others. And FBI's Lanning report, a senior researcher on child sex abuse, is so damaging for believers in Satanic child abuse that the wiki editors who believe this stuff don't want it cited in the article.

In addition to the disputes in the articles' talk pages, the subject is so notorious that has been discussed in the wiki boards:

Certain registered Wikipedians will no doubt be delighted that you are trying so hard to discredit strong evidence which shows that at least some of the cases of satanic ritual abuse may have been the work of paedophile gangs.

It's good that you pointed this out, guest. This is what was being written by Cesar about ipt-forensics.com at the wikipedia SRA discussion thread (archive October-December 2007)

Cesar from Wikipedia wrote:

Biaothanatoi uses ad hominem arguments when he stated in the archived talk page that John Earl's article The Dark Truth About the "Dark Tunnels of McMartin" is biased because it was published in the IPT Journal. Actually, Earl is a freelance journalist. He is no pedophile at all!! His long article is a thoroughgoing debunking of the SRA McMartin claims, including the tunnels issue. It's must reading for anyone willing to correct this article.[13]

The whole of my adult life is devoted to expose child abuse, including sexual or ritualistic abuse (e.g., the African children accused of witches by with-hunters). In fact, I have written five books on child abuse (in Spanish). Nonetheless, SRA buffs are an embarrassment to us, child advocates. The best example that comes to my mind is my friend Colin A. Ross, the psychiatrist who coined the term trauma model in the sense of all kind of child abuse that causes neuroses and psychoses. Many years ago Ross believed in the SRA claims. He changed his views and co-published a skeptical book with Elizabeth Loftus. (You can see the reasons of how child-advocates change their mind with regard to SRA in an online forum in which I participated.[this link turns out to be this forum and I have no idea who changed his or her mind regarding a possible debunking of SRA - Dennis])

Cesar keeps bringing up the ad hominem argument when anyone points out the statements were made by either admitted pedophiles, child pornographers or people joining clubs run by admitted pedophiles. This is RELEVANT and not ad hominem. Example: Calling Michale Moore a big fat liar when he speaks about the reasons why the US went to war in Iraq, is ad hominem because his weight is irrelevant to the statements he makes. However, if Michael Moore was selling weight loss products instead, then a remark on his weight would be VALID.

As a reply to Cesar's wikipedia post above, someone wrote:

Someone from Wikipedia wrote:

Wikipedia asks us to use only credible sources, and John Earl does not meet this standard. He wrote a book with the Eberles, who, it has been established in court, have a history of manufacturing and distributing child pornography. The article in question is published in the "Institute of Psychological Therapies", which was founded, run and staffed solely by Ralph Underwager and his wife, and Underwager has been exposed for over twenty years as a person who consistently has consistently lied and misrepresented the facts in relation to child abuse. He has also made statements in public to the effect that most women sexually assaulted in childhood enjoyed the experience. Earl has a long history of involvement with the pro-incest movement of which the Eberles and Underwager were central to. This is a historical fact, and it precludes any serious consideration of his writings on Wikipedia, according to basic WP policy. I own Colin Ross' book "Satanic Ritual Abuse: Principles of Treatment", and he does not take an unequivocable stand on the veracity of memories of SRA e.g. "The question of the extent to which the symbolism and mythology of Satan are being acted out in Satanic human sacrifices in North America in the late twentieth century is not answered in these pages, and cannot be. As I said earler, at least 10 per cent of the reported memories could be real: no one knows where the actual figur falls, and no benefit can be derived from making premature estimates". (p xi) He also warns against precisely the kinds of polarised debate that you are driving at here. Meanwhile, "Satan's Silence" is not an academic book - it is written by two journalists. Tort, I'm sorry that you could not make a more substantive contribution to this page beyond this hit-and-run approach. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 06:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Someone from Wikipedia wrote:

There are some editors here who believe that claims of SRA have no basis in fact. In my experience, they have also tended to presume (as Cesar Tort does above) that there are only two sides to this debate - the "skeptics" and the "believers" - and that anyone who is not a "skeptic" must therefore be a zealot or nutjob who believes in "Satanic conspiracies". As a result, editors like myself who don't subscribe to the "skeptic" POV on SRA tend to be accused of having a secret "agenda" or being a "conspiracy theorist". This is not the basis for calm and respectful discussion. There are a diversity of opinions and explanations for SRA, even amongs the skeptics. You'll note that I've added the largest number of "sceptical" references on SRA of any editor. However, regardless of what your personal POV is, Wikipedia asks us to give adequate weight to all sources and POVs in order to meet the basic criteria of balance and NPOV. The following is a sample of academics who have conducted research, and written articles and books, which take disclosures of SRA seriously: Prof. Liz Kelly, Prof. Roland Summit, Prof. Jenny Kitzinger, Prof. Catherine Itzen, Prof. Freda Briggs, Prof. Chris Goddard, Ass. Prof. Dawn Perlmutter, Dr Randy Noblitt, Dr Sara Scott, Drs Jonker and Jonker-Bakker, Dr Phil Mollon, Dr Katherine Faller, Dr Valerie Sinason, Dr Jean Goodwin, Dr Peter Bibby. Only a few of these authors are quoted on this article, but they have all made substantive contributions to the study of SRA and organised abuse. These people are not zealots, nutjobs, or "believers" in a "Satanic conspiracy". They are respected professionals and academics who are writing from a range of disciplines, and they take disclosures of SRA seriously on the basis of clinical experience and/or empirical research. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 06:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Some one from Wikipedia wrote:

Therefore, Tort, your claim that ITP is an objective source of information on issues of the validity of child abuse allegations causes me to feel highly suspicious about your true position. You say that "SRA buffs are an embarrassment to us, child advocates", but I don't see how you count yourself as a child advocate when you're using sources from a pro-pedophilia organization to discredit survivors of some of the most horrific abuse that occurs on this Earth! Additionally, you make personal attacks by calling somebody who supports ritual abuse survivors "SRA buffs," as if we're into some fad like wearing our shirts inside out. I'm quite curious as to what your personal theory is for the tens to hundreds of thousands across the world, claiming to have been abused in a Satanic or similar cult. Daniel Santos (talk) 10:00, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Again, Cesar completely ignores hard evidence of satanic ritual abuse mentioned in this article. He didn't even look at it (which I concluded by looking at the unchanged number of views). How can a child advocate side with pedophiles? I would call that an embarrassment to any child advocate.

Cesar wrote:

And FBI's Lanning report, a senior researcher on child sex abuse, is so damaging for believers in Satanic child abuse that the wiki editors who believe this stuff don't want it cited in the article.

It's not damaging at all. Once you do a little research on Lanning. Alex Constantine has done excellent work, and wrote:

Another "expert," a universally quoted debunker of ritual abuse, hails from the FBI. Agent Ken Lanning of Quantico has provided RA debunkers, namely pedophiles, propagandists and mind control operatives in academia and the press, with an illusory pillar of debate. Fatal flaws in Lanning's "research report," a denial that the cult abuse of children exists, were exposed as a hoax by a law enforcement insider:I have spoken to Ken Lanning, I know others who have spoken to him and we all take issue with Ken's *opinion* and how this report is being used. It should also be stated that I work within the System in some capacity and have some experience in investigations. I've also been involved on the metaphysical path for a long time. I'm not too excited about "witch hunts" because I'd be the first one put on the stake by a "hysterical," know nothing public. But neither am I too pleased by what I have been learning about the atrocities that are occurring, the reasons for it, and the artful skewing of perceptions.... Ken Lanning is an armchair analyst and he has *not* personally investigated many cases of RA. Law enforcement and others sometimes *consult* with him about cases and how to proceed. He is not aware of all RA cases. The FBI, Childrens Services, and law enforcement do not keep statistics on ritual crime. No one is keeping track, therefore no one can say with authority how prevalent RA is. The DAs are not bringing evidence of RA into cases unless they really have to because of Freedom of Religion issues and reports like Lanning's.He has a confusing, difficult time defining RA. He has told others that he prefers to catergorize RA under Sex Rings or Gang Violence. Someone like him cannot deal with or understand metaphysical intent. Few people can. Nor can he officially acknowledge RA because of various Governmental entities which have been implicated. The FBI and has been implicated in at least *botching* some RA case investigations and in some instances *covering up* the evidence. The CIA has been implicated in far worse fashion.... There are many cases of ritual murder and brainwashing. Lanning professes not to know of any.There is more to this issue than is apparent on the surface. I have understood some of what is going on due to my personal contact with victims, my personal experience with how cover ups occur, and the sheer time I have put in investigating this phenomenon.There are mechanisms being put in place to make the RA claims "incredible." Of course, not everything anyone says is true, but there are too many people around the world who are victims of this horror and if there are any responsible people here, it would behoove you to pay attention.

Cesar wrote:

The ad hominem, Chewbacca defense accusations to freelance journalist John Earl about the claims of underground tunnels have been answered several times by wiki users Arthur Norton, Eleland and others.

John Earl WORKS for a group of pedophiles and child abuse apologists. Since you call him freelance, I cannot find any other article by him published anywhere else but the IPT Journal. He is the one who calls himself a freelance journalist but the truth is that he could be anyone as there is nothing else to be found on him, except that he worked together with the Eberles (the child porn publishers) on a book. And the only way to contact him - surprise - is through the Institute for Psychological Therapies (IPT). There are so many flaws and inconsistencies in his article from 1995, that it's easy to shred it to pieces if anyone spend time on it. But only supporters of the False Memory Syndrome seem to quote him.

If these are your strongest cards, Cesar, you're in bad shape.

Dennis

_________________Everything I write here is my opinion, not absolute truths but I don't want to start every sentence with in my opinion...

I said that I read hundreds of pages to understand the believers' point of view. You haven't read that much about the viewpoint from the other side. In the above links I linked a rebuttal to the pedophilia-related accusations of the guy you quoted, named "Biaothanatoi" in Wikiland, and it's unnecessary to link them again.

The curious article by Victoria Hardy you posted above (I'd have to check up its sources for accuracy) is no match for a whole book by Professor David Frankfurter, who spent ten years researching SRA, and who publishes his findings in peer-reviewed journals. (Alex Constantine on the other hand is considered a rather fringe writer and only the radical leftists take him seriously.)

On the other hand, the Hosanna Church child sex case is vastly different from the 1980s and 90s SRA craze. It's an exception rather than the rule. This case has also been discussed in the wiki talk pages.

Had you read the whole exchange in the wki, instead of searching for a few of the "refutations" to my posts, you would know by now that there's no single peer-reviewed sociology or criminology journal that endorses the reality of SRA. Reason: it does not exist.

And yes: I am still active in improving child ritual abuse articles in the wiki:

Since I am fed up of discussing the obvious with people who apparently will never study closely the texts from other side, this will not only be my —at last!— final post in this thread, but in this forum as well.

Eight suspected Satanists have been arrested in Russia for allegedly stabbing to death and eating the body parts of four teenagers, reports claim.

The four victims were lured one by one to a country cottage in the region of Yaroslavl on the Volga River, a popular Russian tabloid said.

The teenagers were then stabbed "666 times" each, as part of a Satanic ritual, the daily said, quoting investigators.The victims were allegedly forced to get drunk before being stabbed and dismembered.Their killers then lit a bonfire under a tree near the cottage where they cooked and ate their victims' body parts, the report claimed.Hair from the victims was apparently found in the embers of the bonfire.The report also quoted interrogations with the suspects and said police had intercepted their phone calls following the killings.The victims - three girls and one boy - were all aged between 16 and 17 and belonged to local "goth circles", a subculture that is very popular in provincial Russia, Komsomolskaya Pravda said.

"Corroboration and eyewitness accounts offered by children should also be given serious attention when therapists and investigators can demonstrate that no contamination of the children's disclosures has taken place. In the case studied by Jonker and Jonker-Bakker (1991), children from different schools and different locales gave accounts of perpetrators, abuse locations, and abusive acts that were mutually corroborating. Accounts of tunnels under the McMartin preschool given by children claiming to have been ritually abused at the school were fully corroborated when the existence and location of the tunnels were documented by a professional team of archaeologists (Summit, 1994)."

"How can it be that, with significant numbers of criminal convictions of perpetrators of ritual abuse and laws against ritual abuse on the books in a growing number of states, with the clinical data amassed by thousands of therapists in the United States and internationally, with physical evidence like the tunnels found under the McMartin preschool corroborating children's reports of abuse, that we cannot reach a consensus that ritual abuse constitutes a serious problem for us as a nation, and demands to be addressed? Why is it that media accounts of ritual abuse are often filled with so much obfuscation that the public is left wondering whether ritual abuse might not in fact be the "urban myth" or "mass hysteria" that certain skeptics have made a virtual career out of saying that it is?"

Interview of Jackie MacGauley, mother of one of the McMartin Preschool children

Do you have any proof and references that the children at McMartin were abused?

We were in court for 7 years. Still the longest trial in U.S. history. My daughter and hundreds of people I know deal with the aftermath on a daily basis. Our children's medical reports and the tunnels which corroborated one of the most 'fantastic stories' the children recounted. The tunnels are documented in a formal report now located at a Law University. The most compelling proof was living with my daughter and dealing with all of her revelations and fears.

Why were the defendants declared not guilty?

The jury very clearly stated that the prosecution did not prove their case. The jurors were convinced that someone did commit the crime. One juror said she would have liked to have heard more from the children. All 7 defendants were held over for trial after the pretrial. Criminal counts were added. Before the trial, when the case was not assigned to a courtroom or judge, District Attorney Ira Reiner decided to drop 5 of the defendants. A memo cited that he did not want any of "These kinds of cases anymore." About 10 other preschools were closed, but there could be no arrests without any possibility of prosecution. It was becoming an embarrassment to his office. I was told by a witness family that one defendant had enough counts and enough evidence to be tried, but Mr. Reiner felt the case would not be successful if he included her. A mother/son situation seemed like a more plausible story. Some child witnesses refused to testify when parents saw how the children were treated on the witness stand by the 7 defense attorneys. Some families were still willing to testify but were never even notified that they were no longer needed.

How do you feel about the media and their involvement in the case and after the case?

At first I was amazed at the attention we got. This is a small town and it involved only a few local families, I thought at the time. I never really did understand why it mushroomed as it did. I ask experts and they give different explanations. Dr. Underwager was speaking out on behalf of the defendants in Jordan, Minnesota. Janet Reno was D.A. in Miami during the Countrywalk case. She won the case when Illiana Fuster testified against her convicted murderer husband, Frank Fuster. The giant Bakersfield case and others started well before the McMartin case.

The media likes to report things that they know will sell their newspapers rather than reality. What happened in court was far from representative of the reality of the crime. Moral of this story, do NOT believe much of what you hear or read in the media.

Do you believe there were tunnels at McMartin? What proof can you offer to verify this?

You are asking the person who actually did the project. We heavily documented our findings in photographs, scientists' reports and analysis. There were also an abundance of witnesses, including the media. The formal report is housed at a University Law Library at the moment.

If you do believe the allegations at McMartin were true, how long do you believe they were going on? What evidence do you have for this?

My daughter attended the school for 4 months in (Sept through January when it closed) 1982-1983. The most recent allegations began in August, 1982 when Judy Johnson took her 3 year old son to a doctor who reported it to the authorities.

A lot of us parents still talk about what happened. A friend of mine was Mayor during that time. We still console each other over what happened. A lot of us still feel totally disgusted with the whole thing. Compelling (and corroborating) evidence for me and her family and Doctor was a friend who was 44 when she died last October. She was in the second class ever given at the old location, about 1958. Her psychiatrist introduced her to me in 1984.

Do you know about anyone writing articles trying to disprove the allegations at McMartin, and why do you feel they would do this? Do you have any evidence for this?

Some V.O.C.A.L., False Memory Syndrome type affiliates seem to make it a regular task to discredit our children. Their opinions have seeped into popular journalism and, I understand, are used as fact. If you want some good background on how this all began, start with Jan Hollingsworth's book "Unspeakable Acts" for some fantastic documentation of the perp's games. Another highly recommended book is "The Battle and the Backlash" by David Hechler.

"Since the Eberles' first McMartin book appeared in 1989, they have achieved national status as child abuse experts. In courts of law their work is frequently cited, and they lecture widely to receptive audiences. The Eberles once appeared as featured speakers at a conference held by Victims of Child Abuse Laws (VOCAL), an organization that feted "The Politics Of Child Abuse" as positively revelatory....Blurbs in their own pornographic tabloid, L.A. Star, failed to mention that in the 1970s the authors once ran an underground tabloid for pedophiles in Los Angeles, Finger, which delved heavily into sadomasochistic sex, sex with children and sex acts involving human excrement. Finger contained sexual drawings by children and pedophile erotica..."

"In August 1982, a mother claimed she noticed blood in her son's diaper and an irritation around his rectum. A hospital exam confirmed her worst fears her son has been sodomized. Asked who was responsible, the toddler said, "Mr. Ray." "Mr. Ray" was...a teacher at the McMartin preschool, which the boy had --been attending. Later, when the boy was questioned by local police, he named other children whom he claimed also were present during the sexual abuse."

"What surprised me as an investigative journalist was that nobody looked beyond the seemingly fanciful nature of the disclosures. Nobody tried to interpret what the disclosures might mean through a child's frame of reference and perception. Nobody searched for plausible explanation...children talked about...improbable events like jumping out of airplanes and seeing a horse killed. Yet, investigators did not track reports that Raymond Buckey had a friend who ran a special effects studio or that Virginia McMartin's sister owned a horse ranch."

Paul and Shirley Eberle wrote The Politics of Child Abuse, a book that accuses mothers, mental health professionals, and prosecutors of feeding children stories about sexual abuse. Since the book was published by Lyle Stuart in l986, the Eberles have been cited as experts in sexual abuse trials. They were featured speakers at a conference of the Victims of Child Abuse Laws, a group formed to protect accused parents.

What is startling about the Eberles' reputation as ground-breaking experts in the field is that their dubious credentials have not been widely challenged. Paul and Shirley Eberle edit a soft-core magazine in California called the L.A. Star that contains a mixture of nude photos, celebrity gossip, telephone sex ads, and promos for The Politics of Child Abuse.

In the 1970's, however, the Eberles were also publishing hard-core pornography. Their publication, Finger, depicted scenes of bondage, S & M, and sexual activities involving urination and defecation. A young girl portrayed with a wide smile on her face sits on top of a man whose penis is inside of her; a woman has oral sex with a young boy in a drawing entitled "Memories of My Boyhood."

The Eberles were featured nude on one cover holding two life-size blow up dolls names "Love Girl" and "Play Guy." No dates appear on the issues and the Eberles rarely attach their names, referring to themselves as "The L.A. Star Family."

The Eberles were the distributors of Finger and several other underground magazines, says Donald Smith, a sergeant with the obscenity section of the Los Angeles Police Department's vice division who followed the couple for years. LAPD was never able to prosecute for child pornography: "There were a lot of photos of people who looked like they were under age but we could never prove it." The pictures of young children in Finger are illustrations, and child pornography laws were less rigid a decade ago than they are today.

"Sexpot at Five," "My First Rape, She Was Only Thirteen," and "What Happens When Niggers Adopt White Children" are some of the articles that appeared in Finger. One letter states: "I think it's really great that your mags have the courage to print articles & pixs [sic] on child sex...Too bad I didn't hear from more women who are into child sex...Since I'm single I'm not getting it on with my children, but I know of a few families that are. If I were married & my wife & kids approved--I'd be having sex with my daughters."

Another entry reads: "I'm a pedophile & I think its [sic] great a man is having sex with his daughter!...Since I didn't get Finger #3, I didn't get to see the stories & pics of family sex. Would like to see pics of nude girls making it with their daddy, but realize its too risky to print."

Lyle Stuart plans to print the Eberles' forthcoming book on the McMartins preschool trial. Carole Stuart, the publisher, describes the Eberles as "experts in the field," and family friends "for years." Reprinted in the ICONoclast, WINTER 1988 / VOL. 1, NO. 2 with permission from Ms. Magazine (December 1988)

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Behind the Playground Walls - Sexual Abuse in Preschools by Jill Waterman, Robert J. Kelly, Mary Kay Oliveri and Jane McCord - The Guilford Press - New York, London 1993 "In the most well-known case, involving the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, two juries from successive trials became hopelessly deadlocked and failed to agree on a verdict after 7 years of investigation and trial. At the press conference following the trial, 9 of the 11 jurors who agreed to be interviewed indicated that they believed the children had been molested, but they felt that the evidence presented did not enable them to state beyond a reasonable doubt who had perpetrated the abuse." (p. vii) (Source: Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1990, pp. A1 and A22) "Tapes of Children Decided the Case for Most Jurors" Tracy Wilkinson and James Rainey - Los Angeles Times p.A1 and A2 - 1/19/1990

chapter in book : A Tale of Two Communities" by Jane McCord

Do Children Lie? Not About This - Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles, Calif. Author: Tavris, Carol Date: Jan 19, 1990 Start Page: B7 Abstract (Document Summary) Carol Tavris says that children who are sexually abused almost always tell the truth about what has happened to them. Tavris comments on the McMartin Pre-School sexual molestation trial and says that she believes that the children in that trial were molested.

The Battle and the Backlash: The Child Sexual Abuse War by David Hechler (1988) Lexington Books ISBN 0-669-14097-x "What happened at the McMartin Preschool will be debated for a long time. Few aspects of the case are clear, but it requires no strain of credulity to believe that the children could have been abused at the facility without being diagnosed by a pediatrician."

----------------------------------------------------------------NOTE FROM ADMIN: I've removed a number of posts by helpchildrenheal that contained info that was already mentioned on the site or in linked stories.

"In conclusion, I believe Loftus made several ethical breaches during her research and when publishing her study. The right to freedom of speech and academic debate does not allow for the kind of ethical breaches that were made. The violating of Jane Doe's confidentiality without her written consent around such a sensitive issue appears to have been unnecessary and inappropriate. Loftus' case study will not save anyone's life. Corwin's case study may be used in court, but defense attorneys always have the opportunity to bring many other studies and additional physical evidence to a trial. Furthermore, discussing such a sensitive issue publicly without a person's consent appears to be extremely insensitive. There may have been other ways to contradict Corwin's case study that would not have necessitated publishing extremely personal details about Jane without her permission. The fact that Jane neither was fully informed of the research, nor did she give consent to Loftus' research, shows that Loftus' may have violated the Nuremberg Code of ethics about informed consent. The hazards and inconveniences the research caused Jane were not well mediated. Loftus admits having a dual relationship with Jane's mother. This shows poor judgement on her part. Her reason of wanting to unite the mother with Jane is not strong enough to make up for the possible damage that could have been done due to her dual relationship with the mother. A referral to a more appropriate psychologist would have been more in order. This dual relationship may have also destroyed Loftus' impartiality in the case, possibly further weakening her research. It appears that getting the information out and fighting the cause were more important to Loftus than the people involved in the research. In a sense, the ends justified the means. Ethical principles can never be fulfilled in this way. "